An Act To Establish Municipal Access to Utility Poles Located in Municipal Rights-of-way

Sec. 1. 35-A MRSA §2524  is enacted to read:

§ 2524.  Municipal access to poles

Notwithstanding any provision of law to the contrary, for the purpose of safeguarding access to infrastructure essential to public health, safety and welfare, an owner of a shared-use pole and each entity attaching to that pole is responsible for that owner's or entity's own expenses for work, including rearrangement or transfer of existing facilities, replacement of a pole, complete removal of any pole replaced or any other changes required to accommodate a municipality's attaching its facilities to that shared-use pole for any purpose. For the purposes of this section, "municipality" means a town, city, plantation, county, regional council of governments, quasi-municipal corporation or district as defined in Title 30-A, section 2351, regional municipal utility district established according to Title 30-A, section 2203, subsection 9 and corporation wholly or partially owned by a municipality or municipalities.

summary

This bill amends the utilities laws to provide access by municipalities to facilities located in the municipal right-of-way in the interest of public health, safety and welfare. The bill also establishes the preservation of space for municipal attachments to shared-use poles by exempting municipalities from expenses assessed by joint use entities when the attachment is made for any purpose.